On-line shoppers typically shop for one item at a time, even though they may desire to purchase more than one item or service (“item”) in a single on-line shopping session. For example, an on-line shopper may be in the market for a shirt, a watch and a pair of jeans. This shopper has various options. She may visit a website such as amazon.com, serially search for each item, place her selections in the shopping cart, and then check out. Or, she may visit a different website for each item of interest, e.g., macys.com for the shirt, amazon.com for the watch, and gap.com for the jeans, and place each order separately at each website. Alternatively, this shopper may use a search engine such as google.com or bizrate.com, to search for on-line vendors, product choices and prices or cost for each item, and thereafter locate and purchase each item separately at each website.
The available options for shopping for multiple items on-line can be frustrating, time consuming and unsatisfying, in part, because the shopper must engage in serial searching (either at one website or across multiple websites), consider best price, lowest cost (including shipping costs), vendor ratings, product ratings and reviews, sales tax considerations, and/or the least number of transactions, and/or place her orders at different websites. The shopper may also need to determine various alternatives available to her for purchasing the multiple items and then decide which of the various alternatives is the most favorable to her. In addition, a cost conscious shopper will frequently visit coupon and/or promotional code websites, such as tjoos.com, to locate a coupon (or be advised that a coupon is available to make the purchase) to lower her purchase price or cost. In this case, she needs to copy the coupon code (if available) from the coupon website, and then paste it into the coupon code box of the website from which she is making the purchase. Likewise, she may need to search for rebate information, either at the vendor's or manufacturer's website, then separately obtain the rebate information.
The present invention overcomes these, and other on-line shopping problems by providing a web-based system and method wherein a user, such as an on-line shopper, who wishes to search for, browse or purchase multiple items, may enter or select all of the items she wishes to consider for purchase, or actually purchase, at one website, and wherein the system and method of the website automatically identifies various purchasing options available to the user, provides an opportunity for the user to select a purchasing option, and allows the user to purchase the multiple items in a single transaction via the website, or by directing the user to the vendor website(s) to complete her purchase.